Where Miss Snark vented her wrath on the hapless world of writers and crushed them to sand beneath her T.Rexual heels of stiletto snark. The blog is dark--no further updates after 5/20/2007.

11.16.2005

A Snarkling calls Foul

A Snarkling holds up a glass, darkly:

Ok, now that we've all had a good yuck about the poor little rich girl, what if Miss Snark had said this was a bootlegged version of the latest J Weiner or C Bushnell? How do you think the snarklings would have then reacted?Strikes me as the reverse of the coin of Doris Lessing shopping around a ms. under a pseudonym and experiencing universal rejection.

I like to think I call dreck when I see it. There are previous posts taking Robert Parker to task for bad writing. And the Snarklings are not all that shy about weighing in with contrary opinions.

The difference here is that clearly Nicole Richie has a book deal because it's part of an overall marketing plot, not because she has wanted to be a writer since she was six, or she went to an MFA program, or she had something to say.

And Doris Lessing writes some really weird stuff. The Good Terrorist was my most recent favorite but I've never managed to get through some of her earlier stuff.

I understand your point, but I don't think it's valid in this particular brouhaha.

23 comments:

Miss Snark has the right of it here. This group is vocal about what they do and do not like, and none of us believe we all have to agree. Often we don't.

Does it rankle feathers to see books published with huge publicity campaigns only because the person is a celeb? You betcha!

Does it rankle us further to read some of the book and cringe at the writing? Double you betcha!

My mom was a waitress and my dad a bus driver. You won't see me putting that on my query letter. Which is the point. To get a big buck deal because of your celebrity or that of your parents, it just makes us nuts. I have no problem with such a book if the writing holds up. I'm a gawker just like most of the humans on this planet. LOL

And I'm not a reading snob at all. Often I'm not into some of Miss Snark's favorites. I know what I like and what I don't, and that's just the way it is. Sorry Nicole.

Yeah, I'd have to concur here. As obnoxious as NR is, I think the Snarklings who griped and cringed at the excerpt did so because it was juvenile and poorly written, not because it was NR's book. I've taught composition to college freshmen and sophomores, and reading the excerpt set off more mental alarm bells than I could count. *shudder*

On the up-side, I did get some extra amusement out of the link. I shared it with my circle of online pals, and we all got a hearty chuckle out of it (while grinding our teeth). One of them asked if it was meant to be a horror novel, because she was properly terrified. Scary stuff, that. ;)

... this bothers me much less than the one-trick pony. I'm thinking of a blogger who has one story to tell, and that he has a book deal makes me cringe.

He is stealing the attention and resourses of editors who are doubtlessly missing great writers with MANY stories to tell, and he definitely didn't want "to be a writer since he was six, or went to an MFA program, or had something to say."

Besides, he's a jerk already. Think how he'll be when the book comes out.

What are the chances that Nicole Richie even wrote it? My sense of the excerpt is that it was bad in a somewhat Bulwer-Lytton-contest way - what you get from a ghostwriter trying to sound like her.

sex -

The blogger may indeed be a jerk, but perhaps he does have one story to tell. Why should he, if in fact it is publishable? Though I presume that agents and publishers prefer authors who have multiple stories to tell - who can become a franchise, even if a modest one.

I don't know if I buy the ghostwriter concept. It's not "stylistically" bad; it's just bad. There's nothing to the prose -- no flair whatsoever. A Bulwer-Lytton style is almost... self-mocking, in a way. While the excerpt is mockworthy, I'm not convinced it's aware of its mockworthiness.

Forgive me; I seem to be making up words all over the place. ;)

I'm not saying a ghostwriter isn't possible, because I'm sure it is -- I just don't buy it.

I can't put my finger on what it is about the prose that makes me think the way I think -- it could be the shameless trendiness, the vague bits that should be more specific versus the too-specific bits that eat up space on the page, or the overall immaturity -- because, really, wtf is up with the Holly Golightly reference? It's like she watched half the movie one night on a bender. (The Breakfast at Tiffany's reference is something that, for some reason, really got my back up about the excerpt.)

Just chiming in to point out that I've seen plenty of disappointment in J Weiner's latest, some of it on here if I'm remembering correctly. Sometimes people have *higher* standards for established authors, and it can be more difficult for them to please an audience, not less.

Rick, I believe his story is great blog fodder, but it's not hardcover worthy. Some of us know the difference, and it's a shame that his editor doesn't. I should've said that...

I do like the notion that the pub will make a shitload of money and will take a chance on something new... unfortunately history has shown that all media forms tend to go for do-over until it won't sell any more. Think "Survivor."

A little reality check--slots and quotas. Maybe this has only been my experience in publishing, which, granted, is limited to one large nonfiction publisher. But IMO any success Richie's book has might take something away from other writers: slots, or at least potential slots. Assuming you're not writing what Richie's writing, if you're a new writer desiring publication, you better hope Richie's book turns out to be a financial loss for HC. If her book makes a shitload of money, it isn't likely HC will--presto!--start looking for the next Fantastically Written Classic to publish now that they're rolling in Populist Richie-Induced Dough. HC will more likely be looking for the next shittily written Richie-style book because that's been a "proven success." Too many publishers today often only know one-trick: they will keep publishing the same thing over and over and over again because it made them money some time yesterday, even years before, even if it is no longer making them as much money. It has still been a "proven" commodity as opposed to a totally unproven commodity, which is what a totally new kind of book often is: a financial risk. These publishers usually focus on this one way of what they seemingly believe is lower-risk publishing. A learning lag-time is often involved here too, though the better publishers learn they're losing money earlier and jump onto a new one-trick faster, but they will still do the one-trick thingie again and again.

Going on my very limited experience, I think it's likely that only so many books will be "traditionally" published per year. Some publishers have quotas they must meet and cannot exceed, they have predefined slots they must meet and cannot exceed, and they often must meet them by certain time-slots too (like by the end of certain quarters, like the last quarter especially). Richie's book has already been published, so that particular one probably won't specifically take anything away from those of you submitting today, but her book's having been published yesterday may have taken a slot from another, much better writer yesterday. And the probable consequences of more Richie-Style books being published tomorrow if this one's a success today? See my first paragraph above.

If you ever saw Nicole in her reality show the Simple Life, you'd know that not only does she have no concept of a computer, word processor or even a good old typewriter. I doubt that she could be bothered to spend more than two minutes writing anything other than a check for her personal shopper.

I just hope whoever ghostwrote the Richie book got enough doe-ri-me to takeoff for a tropical island to sit back on the beach with plenty of margaritason hand and plenty of friends to laugh like hell at the fact that poor lil'Nicole has to take credit for what will surely one of the top bestsellingremainders of all time.

Oh,and do you think Nicole wears that tiara to booksignings? That wouldbe interesting to see:)

Having read the excerpt of NR's book, I have to say my vote is that she wrote it herself. No ghostwriter would write that badly. Mrs. Petty (yes, that was her name), my tenth grade English teacher, would have been frothing and writing large red Fs on the page by sentence (and I use that word loosely) two.